GRAND RAPIDS, MI – Grand Rapids Symphony has declared it to be spring, if not outdoors, at least in DeVos Performance Hall, thanks to Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons.”

Spring was in the air with the downbeat of the Classical Series concert on Friday evening, though summer, autumn and winter soon were to follow with all four of Vivaldi’s concertos for solo violin and orchestra.

The irony, of course, is the first day of spring this week felt nothing like the sort. In Michigan, you take your chances with the weather always.

Everybody has heard portions of “The Four Seasons” in movies such as “Pretty Woman” or “A View to A Kill,” and most enjoy Vivaldi’s musical explorations into meteorology and ornithology. What’s not to like as you imagine this 18th century, red-headed priest chuckling to himself as he composed the sounds of gnats and flies?

Grand Rapids Symphony music director David Lockington led a stripped-down orchestra of just 25 string players and one harpsichordist on stage.

Truthfully, I’d prefer to hear “The Four Seasons” played on the Royce Auditorium stage at St. Cecilia Music Center. In 2,400-seat DeVos Hall, quiet passages could really be quiet, and an audience of 1,164 can only be so still for so long.

The “Spring” Concerto No. 1 in E major, with thunder booming, birds singing, was a bit tentative from the start as Goosby found his footing. The “Summer” Concerto No. 2 in G minor, with cuckoos, turtledoves and oppressive heat, was uncertain out of the blocks, but Goosby drew a mature melody from the slow movement.

Flashes of brilliance appeared in the “Autumn” Concerto No. 3 in F major. By the time the “Winter” Concerto No. 4 in F minor rolled like an icy blast, Goosby was ready to turn up the heat with flashy, sparkling technique.

If there were any lingering questions earlier about his skills, Goosby settled the matter with the prelude to J.S. Bach’s Partita No. 3 in E major for solo violin, a work with a steady stream of 16th notes for the left hand, powered by advanced bowing for the right hand. It was awesome.

Soviet premier Joseph Stalin expected a triumphant, heroic work celebrating the end of World War II, and you can see his point. Instead, Stalin got 25 minutes of Shostakovich blowing a sustained raspberry at the Soviet establishment.

It’s a fun piece, and Friday’s performance was magnificent. Lockington led a reading that was propulsive, frequently effervescent, but grounded such that nothing was frivolous. Top to bottom it was very clean and precise as a well-sharpened steel knife slicing through the air.

If Stalin wanted to hear the heroic, he only needed to listen to the woodwinds. The Grand Rapids Symphony’s section was extraordinary. Nearly all got a solo bow – principal bassoonist Martha Bowman for an introspective solo scored high in the instrument’s range, piccoloist Judith Kemph for a jaunty solo scored low, principal clarinetist Suzanna Bratton for a mournful, hesitant waltz. Collectively, the section’s appearance in the third movement was worth the price of admission.

The woodwinds weren’t the whole show. The brittle, high-strung sound of the strings in the second movement was revelatory.

The unsettled finale was brash on the surface, forced beneath, but the applause afterward was anything but.